Skysails was established in 2001 in Hamburg (Germany) and focuses on developing a towing kite system for cargo vessels to improve their feasibility and to lower their consumption of fuel through the additional use of wind energy.
Currently 91,000 cargo vessels are traveling on the sea, mostly using heavy oil enriched by sulfur and other substances that pollute the environment. By using this wind propulsion system, Skysails expect to reduce fuel consumption and operating costs 10 – 35%, and under ideal wind conditions even 50%. Therefore the project also includes an automatic routing-system to guarantee optimal wind and weather conditions, travel time and personal interests of the shipping companies.
This year Skysails is running a test on a 55 m ship, and next year the company will start a pilot batch on a 140 m cargo ship. By 2015 the company expects that 1400 cargo ships will be equipped with such a kite.